Dominated: The Enforcers 2 (The Enforcers Series) by Maya Banks Page A

what you meant to me. That you were more than a temporary mistress or someone to warm my bed before I tossed you out.”
    His expression became bleak as memories of that night, of how badly he’d humiliated Evangeline, repeated over and over in his mind. The look on her face. The devastation and her tears. The despicable things he’d said and
done
to her.
    “It was all a lie,” he whispered. “I had to put on the act of my life and convince those men that you were nothing to me. And, Evangeline, they had to believe it because if they had any suspicion that I was faking it, they would have gone after you. And if I had allowed you to play hostess, there is no way they could spend more than five minutes in your company and not see the truth.”
    “What truth?” she whispered.
    “Of what you mean to me,” he said in a low voice. “I couldn’t take the risk. One slip-up, one unguarded moment when I looked upon you with pride or when you smiled at me, how I’d soften. I would have been an open book, Angel. And you would have paid the ultimate price for my lack of control when it comes to you.”
    “So you struck at me first,” she said grimly.
    Drake closed his eyes in pain. “I was gutshot. I knew what had to be done, and it sickened me. Having to stand there and pretend to be so callous, pretend you meant nothing to me. God, the things I said and did. You have to know I didn’t mean them, Evangeline!”
    She studied him quietly, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip. She was quiet and pensive and her struggle was clearly highlighted in her face and eyes.
    “I don’t know what to believe,” she finally said. “There’s too much I don’t understand. You said you did things wrong with me by keeping me a secret. But if you caring for me put me in danger, then what else could you have done except keep me a secret?”
    Then her eyes widened and her mouth rounded.
    “Oh,” she murmured. “Never mind. I understand.”
    “What do you understand?” Drake demanded, not liking the resigned look on her face.
    “You should have never gotten involved with me,” she said quietly. “That’s what you’re trying to say.”
    “No!” he said in a near bellow, causing her to flinch and draw in on herself as she regarded him cautiously.
    He reached for her hand and sandwiched it between his, feeling her slight tremble as she stared at him with huge, questioning eyes.
    “I should have never kept you a
secret
,” he said savagely. “Never should have tried to downplay your importance to me.”
    She cocked her head to the side, her expression growing even more confused.
    “But you just said that if anyone had known that, I would have been used to hurt you.”
    His jaw clamped down hard as he stared fiercely at her.
    “What I should have done, and what I will do going forward, is make it known that you’re my queen. My woman. The most important person in my life. It will be made clear how I will retaliate if someone so much as touches a hair on your head. Security will be tightened around you, but you know and are comfortable with the men who will be guarding you.”
    All the color leached from her face, making her eyes seem enormous. She opened her mouth but no response came forth, and for along moment she simply sat there staring agape at him. Then finally she shook her head as if trying to dispel the confusion and cobwebs surrounding her.
    “We aren’t together, Drake,” she said hesitantly.
    “The hell we aren’t,” he said savagely. “I drove you away, Angel. I got back to my apartment as fast as I could without arousing suspicion because I planned to explain everything that night and then beg your forgiveness. When I found you gone, I went crazy. I’ve spent the last five days turning this city upside down looking for you. And now I’ve found you. If you think I’m going to let you walk away from me without one hell of a fight, you’re out of your mind. You belong with and to me, just as I belong to